HOME AGAIN.
Four years passed before Falconer returned to his native country, during which period Dr.Anderson had visited him twice, and shown himself well satisfied with his condition and pursuits.The doctor had likewise visited Rothieden, and had comforted the heart of the grandmother with regard to her Robert.From what he learned upon this visit, he had arrived at a true conjecture, I believe, as to the cause of the great change which had suddenly taken place in the youth.But he never asked Robert a question leading in the direction of the grief which he saw the healthy and earnest nature of the youth gradually assimilating into his life.He had too much respect for sorrow to approach it with curiosity.He had learned to put off his shoes when he drew nigh the burning bush of human pain.
Robert had not settled at any of the universities, but had moved from one to the other as he saw fit, report guiding him to the men who spoke with authority.The time of doubt and anxious questioning was far from over, but the time was long gone by--if in his case it had ever been--when he could be like a wave of the sea, driven of the wind and tossed.He had ever one anchor of the soul, and he found that it held--the faith of Jesus (I say the faith of Jesus, not his own faith in Jesus), the truth of Jesus, the life of Jesus.
However his intellect might be tossed on the waves of speculation and criticism, he found that the word the Lord had spoken remained steadfast; for in doing righteously, in loving mercy, in walking humbly, the conviction increased that Jesus knew the very secret of human life.Now and then some great vision gleamed across his soul of the working of all things towards a far-off goal of simple obedience to a law of life, which God knew, and which his son had justified through sorrow and pain.Again and again the words of the Master gave him a peep into a region where all was explicable, where all that was crooked might be made straight, where every mountain of wrong might be made low, and every valley of suffering exalted.
Ever and again some one of the dark perplexities of humanity began to glimmer with light in its inmost depth.Nor was he without those moments of communion when the creature is lifted into the secret place of the Creator.
Looking back to the time when it seemed that he cried and was not heard, he saw that God had been hearing, had been answering, all the time; had been making him capable of receiving the gift for which he prayed.He saw that intellectual difficulty encompassing the highest operations of harmonizing truth, can no more affect their reality than the dulness of chaos disprove the motions of the wind of God over the face of its waters.He saw that any true revelation must come out of the unknown in God through the unknown in man.He saw that its truths must rise in the man as powers of life, and that only as that life grows and unfolds can the ever-lagging intellect gain glimpses of partial outlines fading away into the infinite--that, indeed, only in material things and the laws that belong to them, are outlines possible--even there, only in the picture of them which the mind that analyzes them makes for itself, not in the things themselves.
At the close of these four years, with his spirit calm and hopeful, truth his passion, and music, which again he had resumed and diligently cultivated, his pleasure, Falconer returned to Aberdeen.
He was received by Dr.Anderson as if he had in truth been his own son.In the room stood a tall figure, with its back towards them, pocketing its handkerchief.The next moment the figure turned, and--could it be?--yes, it was Shargar.Doubt lingered only until he opened his mouth, and said 'Eh, Robert!' with which exclamation he threw himself upon him, and after a very undignified fashion began crying heartily.Tall as he was, Robert's great black head towered above him, and his shoulders were like a rock against which Shargar's slight figure leaned.He looked down like a compassionate mastiff upon a distressed Italian grayhound.His eyes shimmered with feeling, but Robert's tears, if he ever shed any, were kept for very solemn occasions.He was more likely to weep for awful joy than for any sufferings either in himself or others.'Shargar!'
pronounced in a tone full of a thousand memories, was all the greeting he returned; but his great manly hand pressed Shargar's delicate long-fingered one with a grasp which must have satisfied his friend that everything was as it had been between them, and that their friendship from henceforth would take a new start.For with all that Robert had seen, thought, and learned, now that the bitterness of loss had gone by, the old times and the old friends were dearer.If there was any truth in the religion of God's will, in which he was a disciple, every moment of life's history which had brought soul in contact with soul, must be sacred as a voice from behind the veil.Therefore he could not now rest until he had gone to see his grandmother.
'Will you come to Rothieden with me, Shargar? I beg your pardon--Ioughtn't to keep up an old nickname,' said Robert, as they sat that evening with the doctor, over a tumbler of toddy.
'If you call me anything else, I'll cut my throat, Robert, as I told you before.If any one else does,' he added, laughing, 'I'll cut his throat.'
'Can he go with me, doctor?' asked Robert, turning to their host.
'Certainly.He has not been to Rothieden since he took his degree.
He's an A.M.now, and has distinguished himself besides.You'll see him in his uniform soon, I hope.Let's drink his health, Robert.Fill your glass.'
The doctor filled his glass slowly and solemnly.He seldom drank even wine, but this was a rare occasion.He then rose, and with equal slowness, and a tremor in his voice which rendered it impossible to imagine the presence of anything but seriousness, said,'Robert, my son, let's drink the health of George Moray, Gentleman.
Stand up.'
